My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes – Eve Sutton and Lynley Dodd

This book is frikkin’ adorable, and I’m not just saying that because of my affection for things made in New Zealand. It doesn’t pass Bechdel, given there is no dialogue at all, and nobody has names, but there is a fair amount of diversity in the listed cats, and two of them appear to be female gendered, one of which is the cat from Greece who joined the police, so I’ve given it that point.

Apart from that though,it’s just a very simple board book, in the story form of the “add one more each time” variety. C loved it, as he caught on pretty early in the game, and could actually read it with me. (Part of this is cos he’s learning to read, which is crazy exciting for both of us, by the way!)

The pictures are cute, the rhymes are neat, and there’s that lovely thing going on with “my cat” where you love your own thing even if it’s simple because it is your own. All these cats doing all sorts of cool things, but my cat likes to hide in boxes. And that makes it special. Cos it’s mine. I’ve noticed a lot of kids’ books have this idea, and I think really at base what that’s about is telling children that they’re loved. As a friend of mine used to say, “Every parent thinks their child is the most special, and every parent is right.” 🙂

It’s a lovely notion (of, of course, not always as accurate as we’d like), and this book does it deftly and charmingly.

I can’t really fault it. It does what it sets out to do with great aplomb. Recommended.